Associate Editor

New metaphors for sustainability: include the craft of great design

January 17, 2012Ashden DirectoryAesthetics, Aged Sex, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Co Founder, Creative Solutions, Design Photo, Ed Gillespie, Features Interviews, Gillespie Co, Interviews News, Metaphors, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Solitaire, sustainability, Sustainably, Timeline, Twitter, William Morris

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Following Solitaire Townsend’sÂ suggestions for metaphors – teen-aged sex, Shakespeare, and advice to the dude – Ed Gillespie, co-founder of Futerra, emailed us to add a crucial component to the art of sustainability. Ed writes:Â

To add to Soli’s suggestions I would include: craft.

Sustainability is really all about craft – artful, considered, creative solutions that work for people and planet.

Sustainability is also the crucial third component of great design, building on William Morris’s‘fit for purpose’ (functionality) and ‘beautiful to look at’ (aesthetics). I add to these ‘sustainably produced, reusable, durable, recyclable’. Sustainability turns good design into truly great design.photo above of William Morris

New metaphors for sustainability: the surprises

December 22, 2011Ashden DirectoryAmbiguities, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Conceptual Metaphor, Directory, Environment, Features Interviews, Flowers, Glass Ceiling, Interviews News, Iron Curtain, Metaphors, People, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Surprises, sustainability, Timeline, United Kingdom

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Wallace Heim writes:

When weâ€™ve asked people to think of a metaphor, we tried to present the idea of â€˜sustainabilityâ€™ in neither a positive nor a negative light, but to leave it as open as possible for people to interpret it in their own way. Even for the DVD, we filmed the four people without knowing ahead of time what their metaphors would be. We didnâ€™t want to promote any one idea of sustainability.

Itâ€™s been surprising how positive the metaphors have been, even from those people for whom sustainability is not a strong idea, or from those who acknowledge its ambiguities.

It’s also been surprising to see how people have found something, maybe not the grand conceptual metaphor, but something in their lives that relates to their view of sustainability. This is as important as the encapsulating metaphor, like the ‘iron curtain’ or the ‘glass ceiling’. The metaphors have not been about a concept imposed from the outside, but about a relation between the idea and something from one’s life that makes sense.

We’ll be presenting more metaphors in the next two weeks.

New metaphors for sustainability: why we started

November 18, 2011Ashden DirectoryAnomaly, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Definitions, Dissent, Everyday Life, Expression, Features Interviews, Flowers, Interviews News, Metaphor, Metaphorically, Metaphors, Paradoxes, People, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

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Wallace Heim writes:

We began thinking about metaphor and sustainability when we noticed that there weren’t any strong or imaginative metaphors for the concept, or ones that we could easily use in conversation. Metaphors are pervasive in human thought and communication. ‘Sustainability’ stood out as an anomaly, a common concept with many definitions, but no metaphors.

So in April, we asked four people to suggest a metaphor and we filmed their responses. We weren’t looking for ‘the’ metaphor. We were experimenting to see whether it was possible to think metaphorically about sustainability, in all its promise, its limitations and paradoxes.

Since then, we’ve added 14 more metaphors, (18 if you count everyone in the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home), and will add another 6 through November and December, here on Ashdenizen and collected on the Directory.

Too, we’ll be posting comments on the project itself, which for some contributors was challenging; for others, playful; and for others, a delicate expression of meaning taken from their everyday life.

Margaret Atwood is with the bears

November 10, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Bbc, Bbc Radio 4, Climate Change, Directory, Element, Features Interviews, Flowers, Helen Simpson, Interviews News, Margaret Atwood, Mariella Frostrup, Metaphors, Reflection, Robert Butler, Short Stories, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

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Margaret Atwood and Helen Simpson discuss I’m With The Bears, a new collection of short stories about climate change, with Mariella Frostrup on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book.

Helen Simpson says one problem of writing about climate change is the moralizing:

“That’s about as popular as telling someone they need to lose weight. It’s the nagging and being preached at element that is very hard to avoid around this subjectâ€.

My Last Car – final showings

October 15, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Climate Change, Component Parts, Features Interviews, First Car, Imove, Interviews News, Last Car, Metaphors, Nbsp, Reflection, Robert Butler, Rover 216, Showings, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Tipping Point, Twitter, Warwick Arts Centre, Wheel

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My Last Car, commissioned by Tipping Point, I Move, and the Warwick Arts Centre, has its final performances today through Saturday at the Warwick Arts Centre. Â Everyone remembers their first car; what if their present car were their last car? Â The show looks at the influences the motor car has had on people’s lives, and issues of sustainability.

The star is a soft-top Rover 216 broken down to its component parts. Â My Last Car is both a gallery installation and a performance. Â Information and ticketsÂ here.

My Last Car – Alan Dix, the man behind the wheel from imove on Vimeo.

Ecocide’s day in court

October 7, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Barrister, Climate Change, Crimes, Ecocide, Expert Witnesses, Extraction Of Oil, Features Interviews, Gulf Of Mexico, Interviews News, Metaphors, Michael Mansfield Qc, Mock Trial, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Sky News, sustainability, Tar Sands, Timeline, Twitter

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Wallace Heim writes:

Today, the theatre of a mock trial plays out in the UK Supreme Court, live onlineÂ (download the software at the top left of the panel).

The Ecocide Trial has Michael Mansfield QC as prosecuting barrister and Nigel Lickley QC as defence barrister leading a case for and against two fictional CEOâ€™s, and is complete with expert witnesses, jury andÂ judge.

The crimes chosen by the court this morning are the extraction of oil from Canadaâ€™s Tar Sands and the Deepwater disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

There is no script. It is up to a jury to decide whether the case for Ecocide crime is made.

Follow the case on twitterÂ and on Sky News/home/supreme-court.

Culture and Climate Change: Recordings

October 5, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, blog, Climate Change, Culture Change, Directory, Environment, Features Interviews, Flowers, Interviews News, Metaphors, Pdf, Podcasts, Reflection, Robert Butler, Robert Wallace, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, United Kingdom

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A pdf of Culture and Climate Change: Recordings is now available.

See four podcasts on culture and climate change

Download the podcasts

Cape Farewell expedition reaches half-way point

August 21, 2011Ashden DirectoryAga Khan Foundation, Aga Khan Trust, Associate Director, Associate Editor, Cape Farewell, Charitable Trusts, Climate Change, Drama Critic, Editorial Adviser, Gutman, Independent On Sunday, Outer Hebrides, Patricia Morison, Practice Art, Robert Butler, Ruth Little, Sainsbury Family, Sheep Pens, Shelley Sacks, Slide Presentations, St Kilda, Television Film

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Kellie Gutman writes: Cape Farewell’s journey to the Outer Hebrides has reached its half-way point. The crews have changed each week, but the Associate Director, Ruth Little is onboard for the duration. Â Her latest post, filled with wonderful pictures and observations can be seen here.

For all of the expedition posts go hereÂ or follow it on our blogroll.

New metaphors for sustainability: nine so far

August 13, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Climate Change, Divider, Drama Critic, Editorial Adviser, Environmentalists Activists, Glass Ceiling, Independent On Sunday, Iron Curtain, Key Concepts, Metaphors, Nietzsche, Patricia Morison, Practice Art, Robert Butler, Sailboat, Shelley Sacks, Sustainability Art, Sweet Pea, Twitter

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From the ‘iron curtain’ to the ‘glass ceiling’, metaphors are one of the most powerful ways in which we frame the way we think.

Yet one of the key concepts in environmentalism – sustainability – seems to be remarkably short of vivid metaphors.

So we asked some artists, writers, architects, cultural commentators, environmentalists, activists and scientists to come up with their own metaphors for sustainability.

We’ve published nine new metaphors so far. More to follow.

Watch a film about four of the new metaphors.

Please suggest metaphors of your own. As @TheMuseDailytweeted yesterday, “The drive toward the formation of metaphor is the fundamental human drive. – Nietzsche”

New metaphors for sustainability: "Come into my house" (DVD)

August 7, 2011Ashden DirectoryAlchemist, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Doorstep, Drama Critic, Editorial Adviser, Global Policy, Hester, Independent On Sunday, Metaphor, Metaphors, Paradigm Shift, Patricia Morison, Poetic Imagination, Practice Art, Reeve, Richness, Robert Butler, Shelley Sacks, Term Sustainability, Twitter

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When we asked Hester Reeve, artist and lecturer,Â to suggest a metaphor forÂ our series New metaphors for sustainability, she offered to makeÂ this DVD, “Come into my house.”

The term ‘sustainability’ is rightly used first and foremost in the contexts of both local and global policy changes. Whilst acknowledging the crucial role played by activist pressure in ensuring sustainability is on the agenda in the first place, I see its implementation chiefly as the responsibility of politicians (shame on them).

I made my metaphor in my house. The camera is out on the street and I open each door/window in turn and call out for various thinkers to “Come into my house.”

As an artist, I am more interested in restoring richness to the ‘cult’ of everyday life and in incorporating the force of poetic imagination than in reflecting/interacting with culture at large. My metaphor therefore reflects this sensibility.

I suppose the only thing someone like me at this point in the environmental direness of 2011 can do is to come back to the doorstep, where the agency of the single being starts and to call for that paradigm shift in our thinking that might finally allow us to dwell as an act of loving the world.